Aftershocks
by Flutterbai
Summary: After an Earthquake strikes Tokyo, destroying most of the city and leaving thousands dead, Kagome is found unconscious and injured among the rubble of the destroyed well. The path to the feudal era is closed forever, the jewel left unfinished. A year an
1. Default Chapter

_It was only one hour ago,  
It was all so different then.  
Nothing yet has really sunk in;  
Looks like it always did.  
_

It was raining.

The warm spring water washed down over Tokyo: sliding down the shallow sloping roof tops, running in little streams over the rough grey asphalt streets, trickling its way through gutters. It soaked up the dirt and grime that had coated the city, washing away all the filth and memories, leaving the city fresh and clean. It soaked into the ruined collapsed buildings, finding small corners and pockets to puddle up in, soaking into the scattered possessions and shattered belongings that lay hidden and forgotten in those destroyed depths. It cleaned the city, washing away all the pain and the sadness, soaking into the warm brown dirt of the freshly dug graved, mixing in with the warm salty tears, washing away the dried left over blood, leaving everything clean and fresh and new.

It had been a week since the earthquake. A week since thousands of tall proud busy buildings had collapsed into rubble and unsettled dust, a week since thousands of warm living breathing people collapsed into cold motionless corpse, a week since a small out of the way well house had collapsed into a pile of useless unsalvageable…emptiness. A week since everything had changed….Everything… and everyone.

_This flesh and bone  
It's just the way that we are tied in  
But there's no one home _

People turned into bodies. Bodies turned into caskets. Caskets turned into gravestones.

Funeral after funeral, one long black procession after another, groups of tear eyed mourners greeting each other in cemeteries, nodding sadly to each other, strangers hugging strangers, words of comfort said and resaid like mantras. No one was buried alone, strangers stepping forward from the shadows to fill the place of family when no one was left to step forward…. But end everyone was buried, and the lists streached on and on and on….

_I grieve...  
for you  
You leave...  
Me  
_

She had been found in the well house, bleeding and broken under the weight of the fallen stones. Even unconscious her fingers had twitched towards the well, searching for the dark empty space that no longer existed, that lay hidden and buried beneath fallen rocks and broken beams.

"Inu…." Was the last thing she said, days later when they removed her from the well, pulling her out of the darkness she had laid for so long, pulling her away from the well she had fought so hard to reach. Had they come earlier, she may have fought them, struggled to remain in the darkness, in the shadows, struggled to get to the well… but she had long ago lost the will to fight, given up hope and faded into to the darkness.

The well was closed.

_So hard to move on   
Still loving what's gone  
Said life carries on...  
Carries on and on and on...  
And on _

_The news that truly shocks  
is the empty, empty page  
While the final rattle rocks   
Its empty, empty cage...  
_

_And I can't handle this  
_

_I grieve...  
_

_For you  
_

_You leave...  
_

_Me_


	2. A Year later

(A/N: Since I didn't say it before, I own nothing but this here computer and one active imagination. Don't Sue.)

_Let it out and move on  
Missing what's gone  
Said life carries on...  
I said life carries on and on...  
And on  
_

"Buyo!" the boy's voice drifted over the shrine. It echoed through the small neatly kept garden, bouncing of the walls of the small tired shrine house, drifting over the nearly restored well-house with it's large deep empty hole in the center. "Hey Buuuuyo!"

Souta clapped his hands as he called, whistling loudly to drawl the attention of the old cat. He was older, managing to fulfill that mystery of teenaged by being completely different and exactly the same. Taller, his face slowly losing that round innocent look of childhood, his eyes sparkling with same old excitement over the newer hidden pain. His voice was the same, yet edging towards adulthood. His shoulders were wider, his arms longer, his body shooting up at odd angles and odd times, making his pants hang high on his ankles causing his shoes to be replaced ever few months.

"Buyo!" He called, dropping his hands to the large silver wheels at his sides, rolling them expertly to maneuver the sturdy silver chair that had be come his life. "Come here you stupid cat!"

His legs sat motionless in the chair as he moved, unaware of the heavy weight his backpack made on them, not feeling the way his thick history book jabbed painfully into his flesh. His arms were thicker, small defined muscles standing out as they worked the large wheels, leaning forward as he did so as if that would help him move. He moved the chair with expertise, narrowly dodging through the small cracks and potholes that dotted the thin cement pathway.

It had been over a year since the chair had come into their life, brought in by the same earthquake that had taken so much away. They had fought against it, they had cursed it, they had hated it, they had refused to use it, and in the end they'd accepted it. Souta would never walk again. No more football, no more stairs, no more running, no more stand up showers, no more anything. Life as he had known it, was over.

"BUYO!"

A large clapping sound came from the doorway behind him, causing Souta to instantly turn his chair around to face it.

And his life wasn't the only one that had changed.

_Life carries on in the people I meet  
In every one that's out on the street  
In all the dogs and cats  
In the flies and rats  
the rot and the rust  
In the ashes and the dust  
Life carries on and on and on...  
And on _

_Life carries on and on and on... _

_  
_Kagome stood there in the doorway, drying her hands on a raggedy dishtowel, one eyebrow raised questioningly. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face in a thick severe braid, revealing the thick white scar that started at her right ear and curving down her neck towards her left shoulder. Her eyes were dark and tired, peering out at him from under inside dark circles. Her mouth was curved into a silent unspoken question.

"I can't find Buyo." Souta said, unable to keep the old child whine out of his voice as he spoke. "He didn't come in last night…"

Kagome sighed, transferring the dishtowel to one shoulder to free up her hands. The flashed across the air, twitching into strange positions and making strange awkward movements across the air.

"Promise you'll look for him?" Souta said, translating the strange movements into words just as she translated his strange wheeled movements as walking. They were broken people who saw each other as whole. Kagome nodded, but he pushed for more. "Soon as I go? Right now? You won't wait till later?"

A few more signs flashed through the air, fingers twitching lightly. Souta grined at the unspoken words, his fingers flying up to sign back even as he formed the words in response. "Okay, I'm going I'm going."

Kagome blew him a kiss, which he noisily grumbled about, wheeling his way towards the steep curving ramp which made it's way down to the street below, replacing the steep staircase that had once been the shrine's only entrance. The stairs had been destroyed in the earthquake, only to find themselves reincarnated in the form of a long sloping two part ramp. Shrine visitors grumbled about the break with tradition at first, till they met the happy go lucky boy with his silver wheels and the silent dark haired priestess with her jagged scar and silent voice.

_Life carries on and on and on...  
And on  
Life carries on and on and on...  
_

They lived alone now in the shrine, the dark haired priestess and her little brother. She had taken up where her grandfather had left off, just as he had taken over from his father, and from his father before him. Generation after generation of Higerashi's, each sweeping the steps in the morning, g, hearing the prayers of visitors with a quite understanding, leading tour groups across the grounds with elegantly printed speech cards or a chattering Souta, selling small trinkets and charms in the gift shop, saying her own prayers… performing the same quite rituals and movements that her family had always preformed.

She had taken up her mother's role as well, preparing small two person meals, offering quite help on homework, washing clothes, attending doctors appointments, giving hugs and advice and permission slips….. the quiet unrewarded duties that she had never fully appreciated before.

Souta, in his part, had taken on her old role, attending the same high school she had once gone too, bring home notes from the same teachers, talking with friends clad in the same uniforms, complaining about math and dates and clothing. Only when Souta called in sick…. he spent the day in bed rather then traipsing around the futile lands.

_Just the car that we ride in  
The home we reside in  
The face that we hide in  
The way we are tied in  
As life carries on and on and on...  
And on   
_

Kagome slid on her shoes, grabbing a soft grey sweater as she headed out into the brisk cold winter morning. She pierced her lips together, blowing a quick sharp blast of air through them to make a high pitched whistling sound that carried across the shrine grounds. It was the only sound she could still make with her lips, and the fat black and white cat was still learning to respond to it.

Stupid Cat She signed even though no one else was around to hear it. She walked along the small cement path that snaked through the ground, connecting the various sights and buildings. Like the ramp, that too was new, replacing the old dirt path that had been carefully laid into the ground by the faithful footsteps of the visitors, worn into the ground one step at a time.

She stopped to unlock the small shrine, pushing the doors open to let the cold winter breeze waft through the small decorated room, chasing out the stale unused air that had gathered over the night and replace it with the clean fresh smell of grass and trees. She whistled again, but Buyo failed to clamor out from among the artifacts and shadows that filled it.

Sighing she continued walking the path, pausing occasionally to whistle loudly, peering into bushes and behind trees in search of the small black and white cat.

Come on Buyo. she signed, as if some how the hidden cat could see and read her flashing moving fingers. There's a tour group in an hour and I haven't even swept the steps yet.

_Life carries on and on and on...  
_

She stopped as the path curved towards the small wooden well house, rebuilt in the summer following the earthquake to an exact replica of the original. The door was unlocked and slightly open, as it always was.

Buyo? She called by whistling again, her heart catching in her throat as her feet drew her closer to the small closed well house, her mind racing as her fingers reached out to grab the hard rough wood, tugging it open to let the morning light fill the room.

The well stood in the center, carefully rebuilt brick by brick in the months after the earthquake, each broken brick carefully remolded into shape and placed in it's old place, the dust collected and made into a thick sealing paste to lock them into place, prayers and charms placed over everyone in an attempt to seal it once again to the magic and prestige it had formerly had.

It hadn't worked. The well house was empty. It was always empty. No matter how many times Kagome threw herself into the deep empty darkness, no matter how many days she waited by it side, no matter how many nights she left the door open, no matter how many prayers she said, it was empty. Always empty.

She whistled… just in case. The soft piercing sound echoing off the walls, diving down into the deep empty well and then echoing back up toward her, the soft and lonely sound reverberating and filling the house for one second and then fading away into silence.

No one answered her call. Not a cat, not a dog demon. She was alone. Always alone.

_Did I dream this belief  
Or did I believe this dream _

_How I will find relief  
_

_I grieve..._

(A/N: The song lyrics are from Peter Gabriel's "I Grieve". I don't plan on using lyrics throughout the story, but I like thought this was rather fitting. Yes the chapters will get longer. Tell me what you think… Please?)


End file.
